Tropical Forest Restoration in Mosaic Landscapes of Southeast Asia
Details
Note: Yale School of the Environment (YSE) was formerly known as the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). News articles and events posted prior to July 1, 2020, refer to the School's name at that time.
Summary
This online course provided an introduction to the concepts and techniques needed to develop and implement strategies for the restoration of forests and ecosystem services in multi-use landscapes of tropical Southeast Asia. The course is designed for practitioners and professionals looking to advance their knowledge about forest ecology and restoration through a series of presentations, discussions, readings, and case studies. Additionally, over the duration of the course, weekly assignments and the final term paper guided the participants to develop preliminary restoration plans for managing a specific site of professional interest.
Content
The material is divided into thematic modules, each one lasting a week. The participants are free to complete their assignments according to their own schedules within that week. During the course, the participants will complete exercises that guide the development of a management plan for a specific restoration site. It is ideal (although not required) that the participants have a site that is relevant to their personal or professional interests about which they can direct the concepts learned in each module. At the end of the course, each participant will receive a certificate of completion.
Thematic modules
- Week 1: Ecology and natural regeneration of tropical forests
- Week 2: Effects of anthropogenic disturbance on regeneration
- Week 3: Strategies to catalyze restoration in the tropics
- Week 4: Social factors for restoration
- Week 5: Monitoring and evaluation of restoration projects
- Week 6: Development of a preliminary restoration management plan
Educational tools
- Interactive presentations that provided a synthesis of the core concepts of each week;
- Pre-recorded guest lectures that simultaneously depicted the video and audio of the guest speaker along with the PowerPoint slides;
- Optional and required readings to complement the presentations;
- Case studies providing restoration examples;
- Two optional discussion sections conducted live with guest experts;
- Weekly short answer assignments which evaluated the participant’s understanding of the content; and
- Discussion forums for individual and group work towards the creation of a final project: a preliminary management plan for restoration on a site of professional interest.
In addition to the discussion forum, the work toward the final project will include one site visit, feedback from the guest expert, the peer-to-peer exchange of drafts, and literature searches using ELTI’s Tropical Native Species Reforestation Information Clearinghouse.